Wednesday, May 6th, 2009
When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Innovate
Moments of economic turbulence provide the unique opportunity to start new businesses, launch disruptive new products, and strengthen customer loyalty - often at a discount. During these challenging time, here are a few pointers on what to do, why to do it, and what to avoid.
- Listen to the market. It’s quieter when it’s less crowded. Unmet needs abound.
- Invest in your customers. Now they need you most. Loyalty hangs in the balance.
- Rather than reduce price, offer more value to your customers and demand greater value from vendors.
- Increase communication with your customers.
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Friday, April 3rd, 2009
It’s not easy to go out and start a business. Yet somehow, small businesses represent 75% of our gross domestic product. Isn’t that astounding?
It’s especially amazing in light of today’s headlines. We focus so much on the GMs and the Chryslers, we can completely overlook the real engines that drive our country, and the real engine that will pull us out of this recession.
The same is true in the marketing industry. Right now, our country needs these scrappy small-agency entrepreneurs to keep doing their thing, because they will indeed dig us out of this mess faster than the holding companies and big agency networks. No offense. I’m confident that larger agencies will offer great help to their large clients, but what I’m thinking about right now is the other 75%.
The smaller agencies that make up part of that 75% and will be doing the marketing to help lead us out of recession deserve a tip of the hat. The reality is they can do things for their clients the big monster shops can’t. With fewer people and less overhead, they offer the nimble and fast approach to problems a lot of nascent brands need.
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Monday, March 30th, 2009
The two big questions that ad agencies are asking:
“How do we price new media and what type of services should we offer?”
Joe Burton, COO of Universal McCann agency, explains:
“Our industry is facing the its most significant change since the invention of TV - the migration to Digital. Digital is unlike any other medium and should not be viewed using traditional benchmarks. The high-volume, low-dollar, high-complexity nature of Digital programs makes it the most labor intensive medium in the advertising industry.”
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